Need help with school assignment (is that okay here?)

If this is NOT okay, I apologize in advance, but I don't really go to any other websites where I can ask for help, and nobody in my personal life has
a clue.

I am taking a statistics in psychology class, and one of my problems this week is to find an example in a newspaper or magazine (online ok) of a graph
that misleads by failing to use equal interval sizes or by exaggerating proportions.

I've browsed and browsed and browsed. The graphs/charts I've found don't seem to be misleading, but maybe I need to dig more on places like fox
news, or yahoo news. I'm not asking anyone to find the answer for me! Maybe you can give me some idea of search term combinations or something
like that that would guide me in the right direction? Or maybe you have some advice for a specific website that might be notorious for
presenting misleading research?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and again, sorry if this is any kind of T&C violation.

I think any websites belonging to the mainstream media would be a great place to look for misleading graphs. I agree, stories involving Ron Paul might
provide some... or the economy, maybe. There are always a lot of graphs about that.

Google Immigration graph, no doubt you will find one in a mainstream newspaper that will be garaunteed to be based on total fiction. Though
Immigrants wont be getting bashed in the press for at least another year or two, im not sure which part of the cycle were on but immigrants were
getting blamed for EVERYTHING not too long ago. So it may not be the trendiest subject to pick.

Originally posted by jimmyx
you simply need to refine your search on the internet..."statistical abnormalities"..."fooling people with statistics"...along those lines...think
outside the box as far as search terms.

edit on 29-7-2012 by jimmyx because: context

Excellent advice, thank you!

Originally posted by BIHOTZ
here is this
showing you what to look for.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I'll keep my $30 and do my own work!

I was trying to reply to everyone, because you all presented some really really good ideas to get me going. Seems like the good ideas keep rolling in,
so I'll just start handing out gold stars instead!

I'll give you another example no one has really mentioned yet. Anyone who has taken 6th grade should be familiar with people modifying the charts (or
that's when I had those classes atleast). One that you'll almost never be taught about though is polling results. When polls are conducted they will
find a certain number such as saying 54% of Americans are voting for Mitt Romney and 46% are voting for Obama. However, somewhere in the reporting of
the poll will be some fine print that states the margin of error on the poll. The margin could be as wide as 7%, so if someone wants to spin the poll
for Obama they'll add 7% to him while taking 7% from Romney, then they can report the poll as Romney 47%, Obama 53%. This is within the polls
reported data so it's completely legal to do. Alternatively, someone who wants to make the lead look like a landslide can say Romney 61%, Obama
39%.

Using this example you can often find the same poll with different numbers on every news network (Fox, CNN, MSNBC make for a good baseline
comparisons).

Edit: I'm going to give you one more and tell you exactly where to find it. Look up the 2008 bailouts, and the CEO's assigning bonuses.
It was reported like this
Bailout: 175 Billion
Bonuses: 165 Million

What they were doing is comparing 175 to 165 to make it look like most of the bailout money went to reward CEO's. Yet there was billion/million
stated but those numbers sound the same and aren't really comprehensible to people anyways, very few people can equate the difference in an order of
magnitude in their head. More accurate reporting would have said:
Bailout: 175,000 Million
Bonuses: 165 Million

This way the scale wouldn't have been changed when presenting the information.

edit on 23-5-2015 by Aazadan because: (no reason given)

(post by AssignmentHelpExperts removed for a serious terms and conditions violation)

(post by SunnyMay removed for a serious terms and conditions violation)

Nothing personal against you or anything honestly. But why in hell with the internet at your fingertips could you not do that assignment
yourself???

I don't get it. How much easier can it get for an assignment in school now??? School is nothing but figuring out who's faster at Googling an answer
to something it seems.

I don't even blame you. It's not even bad if you do in fact learn something I suppose but something is wrong here. I loved my psychology class when
I was in school. This is before internet. We even had a similar assignment of having to find an example of subliminal advertising. I remember going
through ads studying the ice cubes and backgrounds looking. Even after I found some examples it was just fun to keep looking.

I don't know. I think I'm just being an old fart now and scolding the times so I'll stop now.

If you don't mind me asking. What did you do all day today??? I see you're in Cali where it is almost midnight. What kept you from doing this
assignment until now??? Be honest I'm not judging you. I'm just wondering what your day is filled with which puts you having to cram at the last
minute.

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